Health Watch VS Code Extension

A local-first VS Code extension for monitoring multi-channel connectivity (public internet + VPN-only internal services) with intelligent baseline tracking and automatic report generation.

Features

• Multi-channel monitoring: HTTPS, TCP, DNS, and Script probes
• Guard conditions: Prevent false positives with network interface and DNS checks
• Smart baseline tracking: Automatic anomaly detection
• Interactive dashboards: Real-time monitoring with timeline views, heatmaps, and live activity logs
• Incident management: Track and manage incidents with full CRUD operations
• Rich reporting: Auto-generated Markdown reports with Mermaid diagrams
• SLO monitoring: Track availability targets and performance thresholds
• Local-first: All data stored locally, no telemetry
• Watch sessions: Time-boxed monitoring with detailed end-of-session reports

Getting Started

1. Install the extension
2. Set up your configuration:
   • Quick setup: Run ./setup-config.sh (Linux/Mac) or ./setup-config.ps1 (Windows)
   • Manual setup: Copy one of the .healthwatch.json.* templates to .healthwatch.json
   • Custom setup: Create your own .healthwatch.json (see Configuration section)
3. Edit the configuration to match your actual services
4. Start monitoring via the command palette: "Health Watch: Start Watch"

Configuration

Create a .healthwatch.json file in your workspace root. You can use one of the provided templates:

Quick Start Templates

Simple Setup (.healthwatch.json.simple) — copy to your workspace for a minimal starter configuration:

• Basic internet connectivity
• Popular websites (Google, GitHub)
• Local development server

Developer Setup (.healthwatch.json.developer) — copy into .healthwatch.json for a developer-focused setup:

• NPM registry, GitHub, Docker Hub
• Local API/frontend servers
• Database and Redis connections
• Docker daemon and Git status

Production Setup (.healthwatch.json.production) — production-ready defaults and system checks:

• Production websites and APIs
• Database clusters and CDN
• SSL certificate monitoring
• System resource monitoring

Full Template (.healthwatch.json.template) — comprehensive example covering all channel types and guards:

• Comprehensive monitoring setup
• All channel types with examples
• Common infrastructure patterns

Quick copy commands:

# Windows (PowerShell)
Copy-Item .\.healthwatch.json.developer .\.healthwatch.json

# macOS / Linux (bash)
cp .healthwatch.json.simple .healthwatch.json

Manual Configuration

{
  "channels": [
    {
      "id": "public-site",
      "name": "Public Website",
      "type": "https",
      "url": "https://example.com/health",
      "intervalSec": 30,
      "expect": {
        "status": [200],
        "bodyRegex": "ok|healthy"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "internal-db",
      "name": "Internal Database",
      "type": "tcp",
      "target": "db.internal:5432",
      "intervalSec": 60,
      "guards": ["vpn"]
    }
  ]
}

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following VS Code settings:

• healthWatch.enabled: Enable/disable health monitoring
• healthWatch.defaults.intervalSec: Default probe interval in seconds
• healthWatch.defaults.timeoutMs: Default probe timeout in milliseconds
• healthWatch.watch.durationDefault: Default watch duration
• healthWatch.report.autoOpen: Auto-open reports after watch sessions

Commands

• Health Watch: Start Watch: Begin a monitoring session
• Health Watch: Stop Watch: End current monitoring session
• Health Watch: Run Channel Now: Execute a single channel probe
• Health Watch: Open Last Report: View the most recent report
• Health Watch: Open Dashboard: Launch interactive monitoring dashboard
• Health Watch: Add Incident: Create a new incident record
• Health Watch: Export Data as JSON: Export monitoring data

Requirements

• VS Code 1.103.0 or higher
• Node.js runtime (bundled with VS Code)

Known Issues

• Script probes require user confirmation on first use for security
• DNS probes may timeout in restricted network environments

Release Notes

1.0.0

Initial release of Health Watch with complete monitoring capabilities.

Local-first monitoring for VS Code